Saturday, August 24, 2013

Snowden right to seek asylum

There is absolutely no logic to the notion
that a whistleblower should surrender himself to the mercies of the
unrepentant and angry government that he has exposed. Mr. Snowden is entirely
justified in accepting asylum in whatever place circumstances permit.
Suppose a German citizen, upset upon learning of the Holocaust, had
attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler and then fled to France or Russia
for protection. Should he have then been condemned for not submitting
to the justice of the democratically elected Third Reich or for instead
seeking the protection of foreign regimes? While one may properly object
that the NSA abuses are not comparable to the Holocaust the logic of
the situation would be nevertheless precisely parallel.